UAlbany comes back to beat NJIT

ALBANY — It wasn’t easy, but UAlbany coach Will Brown didn’t expect it would be. The home opener for the Danes was Tuesday night, and the opponent, New Jersey Institute of Technology is never going to be confused with Duke, the team the Danes played in the NCAAs last March, Pittsburgh, where the Danes go on New Year’s Eve, or any of the teams in the America East.

That being said, the Highlanders came out and gave UAlbany all it wanted before the Danes came out with a 71-65 win in front of 3,1,41 at SEFCU Arena.

“They were better than us for about 30 minutes, and we were better than them for 10 minutes, and they were important minutes,” Brown said.

NJIT, which only had one starter — 6-foot-6 forward Terrence Smith — over 6-3, was more athletic than the Danes, and it helped that the Highlanders shot 51 percent (26 for 51) from the floor. In the end, though, it was the Danes’ experience and a refusal to cave into the pressure of a 9-point deficit with nine minutes to go that got them the win.

The Highlanders had a 55-46 lead with 9:07 to go before UAlbany started getting big plays. UAlbany’s 6-6 Sam Rowley hit a pair of foul line jumpers — he does his best work inside, 6-6 forward Gary Johnson became a major presence on the boards and Peter Hooley made a big shot late to help the Danes improve to 2-0.

Hooley’s 3-pointer with 1:51 left tied the game at 62-62 and that started a 12-3 run to end the game for the Danes. Rowley’s second jumper, with 11.8 seconds left, sealed it, giving the Danes a 69-64 lead with 11.8 seconds left.

Senior point guard DJ Evans, who is doing his best to help Danes fans forget the graduated Mike Black, scored a career-high 20 points to lead all scorers. Hooley added 13 and Rowley had 12. Smith was the top scorer for the Highlanders, getting 19.

“DJ was good,” Brown said. “I told him that I need to know that I can get 10 points a game from him. He has wanted to be the starting point guard so bad. He is a pretty good player. Hopefully, he can continue to play well.”

Evans also took a career-high 14 shots and played 31 minutes.

“It feels good,” Evans said. “I just do what I can do to help the team. If it means scoring, five, 10 or 20 points, I will do whatever I had to do.”

The Danes are on the road for the next two games, traveling to Quinnipiac on Saturday and then Duquesne next Tuesday,

7 Responses

Stretch coming up with 4 of 5 on road and tough Bucknell at home….Siena is over…..time to move on….next 5 games tough as all are….Devlin injured!
Nice comeback tonight but to live up to the high expectations of fans UA has to step up.
DJ looks good as he gets minutes..less than 10 mpg last yr.

Season is young so I am optimistic but like Siena , UA fans may have overestimated how good UA really is.
UA has to travel to NJIT also.

Coming off Siena win I expected a better effort tonight. UA does not want to be in an unwinnable seed if they do go to NCAA or NIT.

Season is early and UA will improve as will many other teams.
UA has 2 wins over potentially weak teams.

Let’s watch the next 5 games….the season is not just the league season.

UA needs to get TOUGH! They have a big physical team a’la Stony Brook last year. They need to forget the BS NCAA rules and go out and kick butt. Put the big Georgian in instead of Puk, who is a kitty cat! Hit the boards! Knock people down! Make things happen!

I saw Levan play in the pre-season intra-squad scrimmage. He made three or four strong moves underneath… then took and erratic shot. But the moves were aggressive and he seemed in control of his body ..until he shot???!! I think he will contribute in a number of games in certain situations (eg. Vermont, Stony Brook).

I have been out of town so I have not yet seen UA play . But I did see on the UA website a replay of Levan’s great fake/move in the Siena game ….NICE!!

and……btw…..recently looking over NBA rosters relative to my fantasy bball team I see on the Booklyn Nets, in his second year ….Tornike Shengelai ,22,6’9″, 240 from Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.. the same place Levan is from. I will guess they are brothers or cousins. Hoping that projects well for Levan’s hoop abilities.